


The Long Haul

by Redisaid



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Clexa, Eventual Smut, F/F, Fluff, Hitchhiking, Lexa the filthy hitchhiker au, Road Trips, Stream of Consciousness, and now with smut!, because why the hell not
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-01
Updated: 2016-06-28
Packaged: 2018-07-11 11:54:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7049599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Redisaid/pseuds/Redisaid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU. Lexa is a filthy hitchhiker who is tired of running from her problems. Clarke has just started running from hers in a beat up sedan.</p><p>"At the start of this day, Clarke Griffin knew the following things to be true:</p><p>1. She would never pick up a hitchhiker<br/>2. She thought tattoos were stupid<br/>3. She has never had sex on the first date</p><p>Now, just a handful of hours later, she has crossed off all but the last item on that list. It seems like that one is about to become a lie as well."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ride with me

**Author's Note:**

> Updates posted on tumblr: [redisaid.tumblr.com](http://redisaid.tumblr.com/)

At the start of this day, Clarke Griffin knew the following things to be true:

1\. She would never pick up a hitchhiker  
2\. She thought tattoos were stupid  
3\. She has never had sex on the first date

Now, just a handful of hours later, she has crossed off all but the last item on that list. It seems like that one is about to become a lie as well.

It’s all lips and teeth and elbows. The air around them is impossibly hot. The air conditioner of this motel room is trying its best to fight it, but even outside it is a southern swamp is summer. Inside, it’s a bonfire.

But she doesn’t care. Clarke Griffin does not make a habit of kissing strangers in motel rooms. If every stranger were like this one, though, she would definitely make this a regular thing. All she can see above her in the muggy dark are a pair of shining green eyes, promising to reveal secrets she never knew she had to know.

\---

It’s still dark when she leaves. Dawn’s purples are just starting to claim the edges of the horizon, but she isn’t watching their slow advance. She’s carting a hastily-packed suitcase through the parking lot of their apartment complex. This time, she won’t be bringing it back.

“Babe!” he calls after her. “Come on! Let’s talk!”

She keeps walking. There’s nothing to talk about. She’s made this walk before. She made it the first time she found him on top of some other girl. How does the phrase go? Fool me once, shame on you…

“You don’t understand!” he calls.

...Fool me twice, shame on me. Oh, and she does understand. She understands that she is an idiot. 

She reaches her car after what seems like an eternity. She finds herself suddenly wishing it looked a little sturdier, more practical. Rust has begun to pit in the wheel wells, at the edge of the doors. Her tires could use replacing. It’s too late to think about any of this now. 

He catches up to her when she’s shoving what’s left of her life into the trunk. He grabs her arm too hard. “Babe, please.”

He squeezes harder. She wants to cry out, but steels herself. “Finn. Don’t fucking touch me.”

She somehow wrenches her arm from his too tight grip. Before he can reach her again, the trunk is closed and she’s in the driver’s seat. He tries to catch the door, but she slams it shut and locks it. It’s too bad the window never quite closed all the way.

“It didn’t mean anything!” Finn pleads through the pencil-sized crack at the top.

She starts the car. She thinks about not saying anything and pealing out, but then it hits her. Sometimes, she thinks of things that are just too good not to say, “Which one of us didn’t mean anything? Me or her?”

She doesn’t let him answer. She pulls away, into the violet dawn.

And she drives. She drives and drives. Purples become pinks, then oranges, and then fade into yellows and then blues. She crosses bridges over endless blue and into endless green. She drives in silence, only the sound of the occasional passing car stirring her. Then suddenly, it’s noon and she’s just past Miami. She realizes how far she’s gone and how far she still has left to go. 

Clarke pulls into a rest stop. She stops. Without the rumble of the engine behind her, driving her, she feels like crying. The going, the driving, it distracted her. Now, standing still, waiting, her feelings catch up with her. 

“He’s not worth it,” she mutters to herself. Still, her head rests on the steering wheel. Her eyes feel wet and heavy, despite the shred of pure will she holds against them. She fights, but a few tears spill regardless. 

And what will her mom even say? I told you so? I knew he was no good for you? None of this would have happened if you had gone to med school?

Great, just what she wants to hear.

But she has nowhere else to go. The drive to DC will be long. It will hurt her pride. It won’t be very good for her soul, but she has nowhere else to go. 

Then something is tapping on her window. She wants to sink into the hot leather of her steering wheel and ignore it, but the tapping is insistent. 

Clarke looks up, meeting soft green eyes. The woman outside her window motions for her to roll it down, and for some reason, she complies.

“You okay in there?” the stranger asks her.

“Do you want the usual lie or should I tell you the truth?” Clarke asks her sincerely and lets her forehead make contact with the steering wheel yet again. Her eyes feel too heavy for her head to keep up.

The stranger offers her a soft smile. “Lies are overrated, so I will guess that you’re not okay. I just wanted to let you know your lights are on. Don’t want your battery to run out, or, more importantly, your AC.”

When she looks up to offer her thanks, the stranger is gone. 

She turns off the lights. She rolls the windows up and puts her head back down. She thinks she might have slept a bit, but the sun is still high overhead and the car is hot as hell when she stirs. Oh and she’s hungry. Of course she is. And thirsty. And badly in need of a bathroom. 

Luckily for her, rest stops offer the solutions to all of these problems. If only life itself had a rest stop. Clarke might consider living there for a while. 

She visits the ladies room, which is not nearly as awful as it could be, and finds her way to the bank of vending machines. She is having an existential crisis at the drink machine. Should she be practical and get a few waters, or does she go for that rare beast, the strawberry soda, which is staring her down from option number 4 on the menu of buttons? For a second, she is only at war with her need for hydration and her lust for a sugar-laced memory of her childhood, and it’s nice. It’s so nice to worry about just that.

“What’s your poison?”

And then she nearly jumps out of her skin. She swivels on her heels faster than she knew was humanly possible. She finds green eyes staring her down again. Green eyes attached to a very nicely-shaped brunette. Oh.

“I’m still deciding,” she blurts out.

Her kind stranger smiles again. “I’m looking at the ginger ale.”

Clarke can’t help but laugh. “Ginger ale? That’s such an old lady drink. What’s next, cream soda?”

“I will have you know that both of those are delicious.”

She isn’t thinking about Finn. She isn’t thinking about how disappointed and right her mother will be when she shows up on her doorstep. She’s watching her singles slip into the machine and pressing the ginger ale button. She’s handing the condensation soaked bottle off to the stranger, whose full-lipped grin is widening to Cheshire Cat levels.  


“What’s your name?” Clarke asks her.

“Would you believe me if I said it was ‘Thanks for the ginger ale’?” the girl offers.

“No. Spill it. You owe me now. One old lady drink, one name.”

“Oh, is that the going price these days? It’s Lexa then.”

Lexa is tall and tan. Lexa looks like she just spent the summer surfing. Her toned arms are on display for everyone to see, peeking out from a too long tank top. One of them has a fascinating tattoo. And that smirk on her face. That smirk alone could level cities. Clarke doesn’t even want to think about those cheekbones could do. 

“Clarke,” she responds in turn. She feeds the machine more money and presses the button for strawberry soda. She’s earned it. “So Lexa, do you often harass strangers at highway rest stops?”

“Well, Clarke,” Lexa pops the K sounds of her name oddly, but she likes how it sounds. “I like to think of myself as a good person. You looked like you needed harassing.”

Oh God, she did. She needed it so badly. She would have slipped right into the spiral if Lexa hadn’t tapped on her window. She would have been crying and turning around by now, back to the Keys. Back to Finn. 

“Well, Lexa, lover of the soft drinks of yesteryear, you might be right there.” Clarke cracks open her strawberry soda. The bottle offers a satisfying hiss as she twists. She gulps down a sip or two, finding it entirely too sweet, but it’s too late to for regrets. “Where are you headed?” she asks through the sugar in her teeth.

Lexa shrugs and opens her ginger ale. “Wherever I can go.”

And suddenly, Clarke realizes she’s goddamn blind. Lexa is tan, but she looks like she might need a shower. Lexa is tall, but slouched a bit by the weight of the backpack she has slung on one shoulder. Lexa’s brunette waves have seen better days, and she definitely does not have a car in the parking lot.

It almost makes Clarke choke on her strawberry soda. Best to be frank. “How long have you been here?” she asks.

“Since Thursday,” Lexa answers with perfect honesty.

It’s Saturday afternoon.

“I assure you the picnic tables over there are very soft, as picnic tables go. I have feasted upon many a Honey Bun and several packets of Doritos. I wasn’t even expecting a ginger ale out of you. I just genuinely didn’t want to see you as stuck here as I am,” Lexa continues to explain. Her smirk fades, replaced by a flat line. There’s steel in it still, but dense, woolly remorse behind that steel. 

Any other day, Clarke would walk away. Clarke would turn right around and kick herself. She’d go back to Finn, text him about how she almost let herself get grifted. He’d text back, telling her she was an idiot, but that he loved her. 

Goddman. She’s not an idiot. He doesn’t love her. She doesn’t want that life.

“Where is home for you, Lexa?” she asks instead of running.

Those soft green eyes harden. They stare at her, looking deep into her own blue orbs. They probe. They are judge and jury. They sentence her. “Annapolis,” Lexa finally answers.

She doesn’t have to think. “I’m headed to DC. Ride with me?” Clarke offers.

Three bags of Doritos, one pouch of powdered donuts, and four practical waters later, Lexa is smirking at her from the passenger seat.

They drive. They shoot up I-95 with their arms hanging out of the windows of Clarke’s rusty sedan, bared to the sun.


	2. Work with me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Raven, Disney, Mr. Princess, and a beach. Now it's a road trip fic!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can I just say how freakin' amazing this fandom is? I have been around for a long ass time, writing under many names and for many fandoms and many pairings. Clexa has by far been the most welcoming and supportive, and all I've given you folks is a couple thousand words. Please don't stop being awesome. 
> 
> You can find me on tumblr at: [redisaid.tumblr.com](http://redisaid.tumblr.com/)

She’s trying very hard to keep her eyes on the road. Not that there’s a whole lot of traffic for her to fight with on this abandoned stretch of Florida’s coast, but Clarke figures that getting into a wreck at 80 mph is not exactly the best way to celebrate her newfound freedom. But it’s hard. It’s so damn hard, because Lexa is sitting next to her, an enchanting little smile gracing her lips. Lexa is watching the palm trees fly by and she looks so damn relieved. 

Clarke did this. Clarke made that smile happen.

Lexa could be a goddamn axe murder and she could care less. Lexa could be smiling as she fantasizes how she will chop Clarke into itty bitty bits, but that doesn’t matter. She looks happy. Worn, but happy. Free, even. Clarke wants so badly to be her at that moment, hand riding the waves of the wind outside the passenger’s side of the sedan. 

Then it feels wrong to want that. She glances back at the road, then back at Lexa. She sees the dirt on her clothes, the flat sheen of grease just starting to form on her hair. Lexa might look happy now, but she certainly has her own demons, her own reasons for being where she is, how she is. It’s so wrong to want without knowing any of that.

Clarke wants to know. “So, what do you do when you’re not harassing strangers at rest stops?” she asks.

Lexa turns that smile to her. “Well--”

And then of course, Clarke’s phone is ringing. 

“Shit! Sorry! Shit!” 

She fumbles for her phone while Lexa shakes her head and smiles still. Her soft green eyes tell Clarke not to worry. It takes her ages to pick up the damn phone, for some reason. Her hands don't seem to want to work.

When she make her fingers function again, Raven Reyes displays proudly on the screen. It’s a picture of her licking a bottle of rum. A very nice bottle of rum, mind you. 

“Fuck,” Clarke groans as she moves her thumb to accept the call. “It’s my boss. I gotta take this, sorry.”

Somehow, Lexa is still smiling.

Clarke picks up.

“It’s 4pm Clarkey. Your shift started at 3. Tell me you’re not dead, please,” the voice on the other end of the line pleads.

“I’m very much alive,” she assures Raven. “But I uh, I’m not going to make it in tonight.”

“And dare I ask why?” her boss questions.

“I’m kind of leaving the state forever and forgot to tell you,” Clarke admits.

The voice on the other end is silent for a few precious moments. To render Raven Reyes speechless is a feat worthy of a trophy. If she were a little less embarrassed by this entire situation, then Clarke might demand one. “....The fuck you say?” Raven finally asks.

Clarke wants to explain. Raven would understand, as she was the first girl she found Finn on top of. Somehow they’d bonded. Somehow, Raven offered her a job at her beach bar when Clarke accepted she was not going to be able to pay her bills by painting pictures of sunsets and sea creatures. Somehow, she’s been working there for two years and loves it and is suddenly regretting everything again.

But Lexa is there, not even being polite enough not to look her way. She is giving her a knowing, sidelong glance. Clarke feels ashamed for a moment. Then she realizes that the girl next to her was a hitchhiker that had been living off of vending machine snacks for two days. What the hell did she have to be ashamed of?

“Finn was cheating on me again. I needed to leave. Sorry I didn’t call you, but honestly, work hasn’t exactly been on my mind for the past few hours,” she tells Raven.

“Fuck. I’m sorry, Clarke.”

“Yeah well, I’m thinking I should have known better by now,” Clarke says. “But this chick certainly didn’t seem as cool as you were. She mostly screamed a lot and threw my own alarm clock at me.”

“Uncool,” Raven states. “The correct reaction is to jam Finn’s discarded boxers over his head and kick him in the balls. That’s what all the cool girls do.”

“And then invite me out to their bar for drinks after? Yeah, sadly it did not go down like that,” Clarke reminisces, chuckling. “Needless to say, I won’t be there for my shift, or any future shifts. I guess I’m kind of quitting over the phone to you now, which is shitty.”

“Life is shitty, Griffin. Don’t worry about it. Jasper has been asking me for extra shifts anyway. I will have him fill in for you. Can I ask where you’re headed?” Raven prys. Behind her, a crowd cheers for shots. Cheesy tropical music plays over the speakers and glasses clink. Raven’s bar is a fun place. 

“Home. With my mom in DC, that is.” Her mother’s house will not be fun at all.

“Text me when you get there and be safe,” Raven demands. “If you ever want to come back to the Keys, you’ll have a job waiting for you.”

“Thanks, Rayray,” Clarke says. She is feeling way too misty-eyed to be on the phone any longer. “I gotta go.”

“Don’t forget to text me, dammit!”

Clarke hangs up.

“Sorry,” she apologizes again to Lexa.

“You say that word way too often,” Lexa observes. Goddamn, she’s still smiling somehow.

“Well, I am sorry. I just started up a conversation with you and took a phone call in the middle it. That’s rude as hell,” Clarke observes. She stashes her phone back in the center console, ignoring the 43 texts from Finn that are waiting to tempt her.

Lexa shakes her head again and snakes her right arm back out the window and into the sun. “You had to take it. And, for the record, you don’t need to apologize to me, ever. You were kind enough to give me a ride and not ask questions. That literally makes you the best person I’ve met in a long ass time.”

Oh, but Clarke Griffin is a shitty person. She is so shitty and Lexa has no idea. She quits jobs over the phone. She hates babies. She forgets to send gifts to her best friend’s bridal shower. She throws alarm clocks right back at cuckolding bitches. She doesn’t do what people ask her to do. She fails to live her dream and pretends to be okay with it. She makes rash decisions and picks up hitchhikers. 

She changes the subject when people say genuinely nice things to her because she does not deserve to hear them. “Ooh, if we turn off in one mile, we can go to Disney World instead,” she says, pointing to the sign on the side of the road.

Lexa might just pout for a millisecond or two, but Clarke doesn’t see it. But Clake does hear when she laughs. “As much as that sounds amazing, I don’t think either of us need to pay homage to Mickey Mouse right now.”

“I’m more of Disney Princess girl myself,” Clarke admits. She passes the turn off. 

“I never would have guessed,” Lexa replies. 

“Don’t get me wrong. I’m not all about the bimbos who need to be rescued by some prince and don’t do anything. We’re talking 90s Disney princesses. Belle, Ariel, Jasmine. You know, the bad ass ones that actually did stuff.” Clarke isn’t sure why she feels the need to defend herself, but she doesn’t want Lexa to think she’s an idiot who admires tortured women pining for their lovers to save the day.

“I can respect that,” Lexa offers. 

For some reason, some terrible reason, this makes Clarke feel better. Relief travels through her bones, extending into her muscles and relaxing them. She feels like her limbs grow an inch each as her tension unfurls. In fact, every conversation with Lexa seems to have this effect on her. For now, she’s not going to question it.

Lexa continues, “I’m more about the animal movies. The Lion King was always my fave.”

“A solid choice,” Clarke says with a nod.

Silence takes over again, except it's not silence. The hot wind from Lexa’s open window barrels through and between the silence. Smells of sunshine and green fill the car. It’s a beautiful day, and they’re just sailing by it.

Clarke can’t stand it again. Her muscles are tensing, bunching up. Her fists are knotting around the steering wheel, threatening to make her grip permanent. Her breaths are getting shallow. It’s selfish, but she needs that release. She can’t think about how annoying she’s being. “That was my boss before,” she tells Lexa. “I was a bartender in Key West.”

And now that stare is back on her. Lexa’s olive green eyes are watching her, the smile gone. Her mouth is a flat line, full lips accented by the orange of a sun that is threatening to set soon. Should she reveal, or should she not? The eyes ask Clarke, are you worth it? Are you worth the truth?

“I was going to be lawyer,” Lexa tells her. “I used to think I liked politics.”

“And now?” Clarke dares to ask.

“I could give a shit,” Lexa replies. “I realized that, even if I worked my ass off, there was no way I would ever get to a point where I could make the world a better place. So no, I don’t really like politics anymore.”

No, Lexa is no politician. She would probably look amazing in a pantsuit, but the rest of the get up would not fit her. She is so genuine, even behind that calm mask she seems to wear. Her big, soft eyes are a dead give away. There s a gentle soul in there. It has seen its fair share of shit too. Maybe not cheating boyfriends and alarm clock missiles, but definitely some shit.

“I’d say something about how you don’t know until you try or something, but I think that everyone in this car knows that’s bullshit,” Clarke remarks.

“Even this guy?” Lexa asks, smirking again as she points to the little stuffed lion on Clarke’s dashboard. 

Clarke snorts. “Especially Mr. Princess. You don’t know his life.”

“Mr. Princess?”

“It’s a long story.”

“I think we have plenty of time, Clarke.”

Clarke chances one more long glance away from the road and into those soft eyes again. God, how does this woman know exactly what she needs? How does she know that every moment of silence is now deafening? How does she know that her smooth voice and popping K sounds have some otherworldly effect on Clarke? How does she know that she is the only thing keeping her strong right now? This stranger from a rest stop. This hitchhiker. This goddess.

“Well...” Clarke begins.

\---

It’s an hour or two later and the sky is turning red. 

Lexa now knows all of the sordid details of Mr. Princess’ life. She knows that Clarke’s father bought him for her at the zoo when she was four. She knows that he asked Clarke what the lion’s name was and she answered Princess, because that was what her dad used to call her, so she would call all of her babies that too. Clarke learned that day that lions with manes were boys. Princess was not a suitable name for a boy, but it had already been given and could not be taken away. The only reasonable thing to do was to add a “Mr.” to it. 

Clarke tells Lexa all about her dad. She talks about how amazing he was. How he would tell her mom that he was taking her to dance class and then take her to the arcade instead. How they’d play skeeball for hours and spend their tickets on candy they kept hidden in the glove box of his truck. How he supported her art. How he loved her. 

She doesn’t tell Lexa that he is dead, but she doesn’t feel the need to. The way that Lexa looks at her, the oh so gentle way her fingertips come to rest on Clarke’s arm when she falters a moment on the last story tells her that she knows. Somehow, she already knows.

“I think I need a pit stop,” Clarke says, at the end of her last bit of rambling. She turns on her blinker and gets in the right lane to get off at the next exit.

“Not this one,” Lexa cautions. “Take the next one after.”

Clarke turns to her with questioning eyes, but only gets a smirk in return. But she listens. Clarke Griffin, who does not do well with being told what to do, does as she’s told.

“Go east,” Lexa tells her when they take the exit.

She obeys again. 

But this road is stretching out long and dark. Trees swinging with spanish moss loom over them. There’s no sign of civilization, much less a gas station with a nice bathroom.

“So, is this the part where I find out the hard way that you’re a serial killer?” Clarke has to joke.

Lexa laughs. “No. Work with me here, Clarke. It’s just another mile or so.”

So she works. She drives. 

And it’s a beach. It’s a beach with nothing but a little ice cream shack on it and some public bathrooms. She needs both ice cream and a bathroom, but the sun is setting and it’s gorgeous. She can forget both of those needs for a minute. She beams her thank you at Lexa as they park in the form the widest grin her lips can manage.

Which Lexa returns in a similar fashion.

They’re out of the car as soon as the engine turns off. Clarke manages to grab her phone and is taking pictures of this little paradise. The sun is setting in the west, away from the water, but it is still casting an amazing glow on the Atlantic. There’s no one else but them and the poor teenage kid running the ice cream shack. 

“This is amazing,” Clarke shouts to Lexa over the waves.

Lexa doesn’t say anything. Lexa seems to like to let her talk. She strides lightly on the sand, looking so at home here, in this secluded place. Her long limbs drink up the last of the sun, shining golden in those final rays. She has to be a goddess, sent to save Clarke from herself. She just has to be.

"Can I take your picture?" Clarke asks.

Lexa nods. Clarke snaps a photo and is almost amazed that Lexa shows up in it. She half expected her not to. Mystical beings and photographs generally don't mix well.

When the sun gives up, they hit the restroom and then get ice cream. Lexa buys, with money Clarke doesn’t ask about. She gets herself two scoops of mint chocolate chip on a sugar cone. Clarke opts for strawberry in a waffle cone. 

When they get back in the car, it seems like even Mr. Princess is smiling along with them.


	3. Stay with me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry Potter discourse, TOUCHING, and the motel room appears...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on tumblr: [redisaid.tumblr.com](http://redisaid.tumblr.com/)

“How did you know about that place?”

The shine of their sunset escapades has begun to fade enough where Clarke feels comfortable asking such an invasive question. Still, it stings her lips as it leaves them. She deserves to know, though. She’s spilled enough of her guts. Now it’s Lexa’s turn.

But this time, the green eyes don’t harden and judge her. They look away, down at the oscillating light from the streetlights that floods the concrete of the highway that carries them. Lexa’s lips quirk up just slightly, conjuring a fond memory, perhaps. “My grandma lived in Boca. We used to drive down every summer to visit her.”

And then Clarke is imagining little Lexa. A fury of messy brown braids and sunburn, terrorizing the pool of some over 55 community in her neon green water wings. It’s fucking precious.

“I haven’t been this way in a while,” Lexa continues. “I was hoping that little place back there was one of those rare havens on Earth that doesn’t change. For the record, it hasn’t.” She whips back around to look at Clarke again.

Clarke can see that grin out of the corner of her eye. She’s never been one for hard drugs, but these smiles of Lexa’s are becoming a new addiction. Her jaw muscles are beginning to ache from trying to match them. “Now you’re making it seem like you’ve shared something sacred with me,” she tells Lexa. 

She doesn’t tell her that she still thinks she might be a goddess. That beach was her valhalla. That ice cream shack was her temple. The bathrooms? Well, they were just bathrooms.

“Just don’t tell anyone about it,” Lexa warns. “Things like that are better when only a select few know about them.”

“Well,” Clarke says as she chances a look across the center console. “Thanks for letting me join that club.”

“You’re welcome, Clarke.”

That didn’t go so badly. Maybe she is allowed to ask Lexa things now. They’d been driving together for hours now. They’d washed their hands together in a public bathroom. They’d both caught each other licking the Dorito dust off of their fingers. That last point alone meant they could no longer be strangers, right? 

So she asks, “So you don’t just roam the I-95 corridor looking for dumb blondes fleeing their former lives?”

Oh. Lexa is silent. Oh no. That was too much, wasn’t it?

“You’re not a dumb blonde, Clarke,” Lexa finally says to her in a more serious tone than Clarke has ever heard from her before. “I can tell you that with perfect certainty and I’ve only known you for a few hours.”

Clarke isn’t going to accept that deflection as an answer. She can be silent too.

Lexa sighs, knowing that she can’t dodge such a weighty lack of sound. “But no, I haven’t been up this way in a while. When I left home, I headed west, not south. I kept going until the road ran out. I swung up north for a bit, then south, then west again…”

“And ended up in Florida of all places?” Clarke asked. “Are you certain you didn’t just run away to Disney World, only to find out you were too tall to play Belle?”

“Nonsense, Clarke. I’d clearly be working in the Harry Potter section of Universal Studios. But I--”

“Wait!” Clarke demands, greatly suppressing the urge to slam on the breaks. “What house?”

“Ravenclaw, obviously,” Lexa answers quickly.

“Ooh. I always wanted to think of myself as a Ravenclaw, but I’m probably a Slytherin all day,” Clarke shares.

“Hmm,” Lexa hums and smirks. “Noted. Maybe I’m the one who will have to watch out for you.”

“Sorry for interrupting, but you have to understand that is an important fact I need to know about anyone who is in my vehicle at any given time,” Clarke apologizes.

“Of course,” Lexa nods. “Anyway. I had a bike when I started, an old Harley. Then I got to Texas hill country, and it was either sell the bike for enough money to keep going for a while or ride it home. As I’m sure you’ve already figured out with your scheming Slytherin mind, I sold the bike.”

“You’re brave,” Clarke blurts out without thinking. Her mind follows behind, explaining why it made her tongue move that way. Imagine yourself, Clarke, it beckons. Imagine staring down a road with no way to move on it but for the kindness of others or your own two feet. Clarke can’t. She doesn’t trust most people and she hates exercise.

“Brave?” Lexa scoffs. “In hindsight, I’d call that stupid.”

“You did what thought was right at the time. Worse things could have happened,” Clarke points out. “You know, war, genocide, a nuclear apocalypse.”

Lexa chuckles. “But how much more badass would I be as a post-apocalyptic warrior queen if I had a motorcycle still?”

“I mean, like the most badass, but to achieve true badassdom, you would have to make a motorcycle out of the bones of your enemies,” Clarke suggests.

“Now we’re talking.”

Clarke dares to ask one more question. “So why go home now, after all that?”

And maybe this is the question that breaks her. Lexa is silent again. The air in the sedan becomes laden with the silence, hanging like moisture between them, like fog. 

Clarke looks over to the passenger’s side again. She finds Lexa looking right at her.

“I was waiting for a sign,” Lexa tells her.

“A sign?”

“You were the first person I’ve ridden with that was headed that way, Clarke.”

Oh no, that is too much responsibility. She can’t be someone’s sign. She is not a compass. She is not a map. She is a mess. She can’t even guide herself. She has to be honest. “I gotta say, Lexa, that I’m a pretty shit sign.”

“I don’t know about that, Clarke.”

“There’s a lot you don’t know about Clarke,” she confesses. Guilt brews in her. How can this woman look at her with such adoration? She’s a fuck up on her best days. She is a flaming pile of dog shit on her worst.

“And I don’t need to. I’ve learned enough about you already. If you want to tell me more, great. If not, that’s fine too.” And Lexa is still staring right at her. Those green eyes. God. How are they even legal? How are they even of this earth? 

They are not hard this time. They are not soft either. They are somewhere in-between, viscous even. They shine like syrup, like dense galaxies, whirling with stars. 

“As biased as you might be toward me being nice enough to pick you up, one good deed doesn’t--” Clarke tries to explain.

But Lexa’s long finger is resting on her lips. “Shh,” she says. “I said I don’t need to know.”

Her lips are on fire. It’s like she’s eating the hottest of hot wings. There needs to be a waiver for this that she forgot to sign. Lexa’s eyes are illegal, but her touch is a class A felony.

And they’re swerving. The worn tires of the car thump loudly against the wake up strips on the side of the road, shaking them violently.

“Fuck!” Clarke’s hot breath puffs against that finger as it withdraws in a desperate attempt to hold on. She spins the wheel, wrenching the car back to the center of the road.

They’re breathing hard. The car is coasting smoothly again in the middle lane. They’re looking ahead, watching the empty road unfurl into the night’s blackness beyond them.

“Fuck. Lexa, are you okay?” Clarke asks when she finally feels full of oxygen again.

“I’m fine,” Lexa assures her between shaky breaths. “It’s okay, Clarke.”

But it’s not okay. That was not okay. That little touch against her lips, that searing fire, was not okay. 

Clarke blames the easiest target she can for whatever it was she just felt, “I think I might need to call it quits on the driving for the night. I’m getting tired.”

Then her stomach drops. It swings down to her hips and then up into her throat a moment later. This is worse. This is so much worse. What does Lexa do when she stops? What does she do? Does she leave her? Did she just end this? Did she just fuck it all up again?

Clarke regrets her inexperience with hitchhikers immediately. 

“Oh,” Lexa says.

Clarke doesn’t even turn to face her. “I mean, we’re stopping. You are stopping. With me. Because I’m taking you home to Annapolis. I promised, but I can’t make it there today, so you’re staying with me. I will get us a room. For sleeping. Two beds.”

Clarke swallows hard. Her heart is racing faster than it did when she was pulling the car away from the ditch just moments ago. Those words were meant to come out slowly and eloquently and much better formed. Complete sentences would have been great, but it’s too late again.

“Oh,” Lexa repeats.

“I mean, you don’t have to--”

“No. That’s great Clarke. I really appreciate it,” Lexa says. She hasn’t been able to look over at Clarke yet. Her eyes are still fixed on the road ahead.

“So you’ll stay with me then?”

“If I refuse, that means finding another picnic table for the night, so I think I’m gonna say a hard yes to staying with you. You know, for my back’s sake,” Lexa excuses.

“Okay then,” Clarke says, clicking her mouth closed with harsh finality on the last syllable. She has to close it before she can say something that will make this more awkward than it already is.

The car is silent again, but this silence isn’t hot or wet. It is no fog. It is clear and cold, like a winter night. Or maybe that’s just the AC that Lexa cranks up without asking.

\---

Three miles later, they’re pulling off the highway and into the parking lot of a motel. Clarke is prying her over-stuffed suitcase from the trunk while Lexa takes her backpack from the back seat. Both of them cart their tightly-packed lives with them to the front desk, where Clarke whips out her credit card before anything can be said. 

The room is small, but clean. The bedspreads are a hideous floral, but the linens beneath them are still soft and white. The AC unit on the wall is roaring, but not doing much for the temperature of the room. It’s hot. Everything is still so damn hot, and it won’t stop.

But Lexa is looking at her again and grinning. “Can I...can I take a shower?” she ventures to ask. 

Clarke smiles back. Lexa, in her tank top and board shorts, toned arms free in the low lamp light, is still very much a girl. She looks positively giddy at the idea of being able to get clean. 

“Go nuts,” Clarke tells her. “I forgot we had ice cream for dinner, so I’m going to see if we can get some proper food delivered here. Do you eat pizza?”

Lexa is already prancing to the bathroom, backpack in tow. “Is the sky blue? Are trees green? Then yes, Clarke. I eat pizza.”

The shower is on and Clarke can almost swear she hears the faintest of happy hums in-between the rush of the hot water. She flops on the bed closer to the door, finding it soft and welcoming enough. She plugs in her phone charger behind the lamp. She checks the drawer of the nightstand for takeout menus, but finds only a Gideon’s Bible and a half-used book of matches. She goes to consult her charging phone for ideas. 

The lock screen stops her. A picture of her and Finn beams up at her. It’s years old, from just after they arrived in the Keys, just after college. Clarke is sunburned from one of her first optimistic outings to the local beach. Finn is wearing a ridiculous pair of aviators that make him look like deranged beetle. 

She looks at it for longer than she wants to admit. She wants to feel bad about all of this. She wants to cry. But the couple in that photo--well, it feels like she doesn’t even know them. They look like a picture in a magazine, people living outside of reality. They are hollow images. Their smiles aren’t real, but drawn on, pixel by pixel. 

Clarke is not that girl anymore. She doesn’t know what happened to that Georgetown University t-shirt she was wearing in the photo. She doesn’t know what happened to the girl wearing it, who thought that following her boyfriend to a tropical paradise would let her escape what had happened. Whether or not she was burning herself under the Florida sun, her dad was still gone. Running away from his grave didn’t bring him back. It didn’t let her forget about him either.

Clarke unlocks the screen. She ignores her pile of notifications for now, opting to immediately change her lock screen to the first acceptable thing she can find, a cute kitten picture that Monty sent her a few weeks ago.

But then the urge calls. She checks the texts. She ignores Finn’s name, now alerting her to 55 new texts for him. Raven sent her one, another threat to have her make sure she texts when she arrives safely in DC. Jasper sent another, mostly a bunch of crying emojis and something about how they will all miss her down at Spacewalker’s bar. And then, of course…

 **The Bestest Blake:** why is greasy head mcgee asking me to call you?

 **The Bestest Blake:** OMG!!! you did it. you finally fucking did it.

 **The Bestest Blake:** i am so proud of you Clarkles

 **The Bestest Blake:** i hear ur headed to DC. be safe and call me AS SOON AS YOU GET HERE!!!  <3<3<3

Of course Octavia already knew. Nothing escaped that girl. Clarke had been on the verge of tears again, but now she’s grinning. She’ll see Octavia again. Octavia and Lincoln and Bellamy and Monty and all of the rest of her friends that stayed in DC. Her heart swells. Going home seems like an awesome idea, at least for a moment or two.

Her thumbs are furiously working up a reply.

 **Clarkles the friendly unicorn:** Yeah, I did do it. Let me drive my ass up there and then I’ll tell you all about it. I missed you. Here’s me saying goodbye to the Florida sun...

She goes to insert a selfie she took on the beach with the ice cream shack earlier. She’s trying to pick it out of her camera reel, but then the bathroom door opens.

And Lexa is there. Lexa is clean. Lexa is followed by a waft of steam and the crisp scent of hotel soap. Lexa’s brunette waves are dark and dripping down the back of a fresh tank top. Said fresh tank top is still clinging to her skin with moisture. Oh. She has hips too. Same black board shorts, though.

Alright. Fine. Lexa is clean and Lexa is fucking stunning.

Clarke frantically presses the send button on her text and then drops her phone. “Oh. Hey. Good shower?”

“Awesome shower,” Lexa sighs contentedly. She’s still patting her hair dry with a towel and looks like she’s died and gone to heaven. “Thank you again for making it possible.”

“Good. Great. Grand,” Clarke is about to start making up words. She wrenches her eyes away from the single bead of water that is resting on Lexa’s shoulder like a fucking parrot on a pirate. She scoops up her phone from the ugly patterned carpet of the floor. She won’t dare watch that drop of water roll slowly down the length of Lexa’s tattooed arm. That would be too much.

“Did you find pizza?” Lexa asks.

Fuck. Right. Pizza. “Uh, there were no menus in the room. Let me call the front desk.”

The front desk tells her that she’s crazy. They’re in the middle of nowhere, just south of the Florida/Georgia border. There used to be a pizza place here, but it went out of business years ago. The family that owned it were scum anyway. The front desk could go on for days about this, but Clarke is hungry. She needs to be hungry for food, right now, at this moment, and not for stolen glances at the still damp girl laughing behind her.

“Well, where can we get something to eat around here then?” Clarke asks into the beige plastic receiver.

“Only thing still open at this hour round here is the bar by the trailer park down the street,” the front desk answers.

Clarke holds the phone between her jaw and her shoulder, chancing a glance back at Lexa as she asks, “You’re not above finding dinner at a trailer park bar, are you?”

Lexa is fucking glowing in the light from the bathroom door. How dare she? 

Even her teeth are clean. They shine she she grins yet again. “Clarke, I know the shower probably helps disguise it, but did you forget that you picked me up at a rest stop a few hours ago?”


	4. Dance with me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I can’t decide on what songs they dance to. It’s either:
> 
> Pay No Mind - Madeon (featuring Passion Pit)  
> Runaway (U & I) - Galantis  
> You - Galantis  
> Strangers - Seven Lions  
> Stay the Night - Zedd
> 
> But feel free to insert your favorite too! Tell me what you think they danced to!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stalk me on tumblr: [redisaid.tumblr.com](http://redisaid.tumblr.com)

They walk to the bar. Night has cooled the air a little, but not much. The walk only takes three minutes, but it feels like three minutes of walking through warm jello. The air is cooler, but it’s thick.

Said bar is not what Clarke pictured it to be. She was imagining and dingy dive, with peanut shells on the floor and a sad country song about someone’s dog dying playing over crackling speakers. 

This bar is not that. It’s a small building with a tin roof, huddled among the front office and maintenance buildings of the trailer park. It overlooks a very serene retention pond. Most of the seating is outside, little tables with umbrellas that have since been closed since there’s no sun to protect against. A barbecue smoker is still going off to one corner, filling the moist air with heavenly, smoky smells. In the other corner, a small stage is home to a lone DJ, who is playing dance music for a few young people that are brave enough to congregate and dance in front of him. Ringing all of this are strands for Christmas lights wrapped around palm trees.

Actually, it’s cute as hell.

“Not what I was expecting,” Lexa comments as they walk up.

“Me either,” Clarke says.

Suddenly, Lexa is a different person. She is striding confidently up to someone who looks like they work there and is asking for a table and menus. She is making it seem like they belong there. The softness of her features seems to be forgotten. Instead, they harden into a stern mask that seems to scream for obedience. 

The waitress leads them to a lovely table, just outside of the makeshift dance floor. The menu they get is simple. BBQ chicken, ribs, or pulled pork with miscellaneous sides.

“No vegetarians allowed,” Clarke remarks as she looks at the little slip of paper that serves to advertise these things.

“Hmm?” Lexa questions. “I’m sure they can find something for you.”

Clarke immediately defends her meat-eating ways, “Oh. No. Not me. God no. That’s not a problem for you, right?”

Lexa smiles and shakes her head. 

Before long, they are lingering over beers, waiting for one half of a chicken to arrive, and one pulled pork sandwich. Clarke wanted ribs, but that’s way too messy to eat on a date. Wait, what? In front of a stranger. That’s what she was looking for. Way too messy to eat in front of a stranger.

Right?

She blames it on the heat. This damn Florida, almost Georgia heat. It’s doing things to her head. It’s making Lexa look amazing, even as her still drying hair frizzes into wild curls in the soft light of the dance floor. Clarke pretends to look past her, at the kids that are dancing to the music she least expected from this place.

The waitress sets a beer in front of her and says, “We let Ryder there play what he wants on Saturdays. The young folk seem to like it.”

Clarke only nods in response and desperately snatches up the beer. It’s cold and good. She needs the cold.

But it’s not cold enough, because Lexa is looking right at her and grinning again. She’s sipping her own beer, letting the condensation from the glass run down her elegant fingers as she tips the glass. She’s smiling at Clarke through the foam that brushes her lips. This. This is fucking dangerous.

“Been a minute since I’ve had some good barbecue,” Clarke says to interrupt that dangerous grin.

“Ever been to Kansas City?” Lexa asks, thankfully putting her beer down and putting those goddamn gorgeous eyes away.

Clarke shakes her head. “Never been west of the Mississippi.”

Lexa feigns a mortified gasp, then smiles again. “You should fix that. Anyway, that was where I had the best barbecue of my life. I had heard it was amazing, but it definitely lives up to all expectations.”

Why the hell is Clarke imagining this woman licking barbecue sauce off her long fingers, from those full lips? In what fucking world is that appropriate? What is wrong with her? She just left her cheating boyfriend. These thoughts should be prohibited for at least 30 days. Is there not some human law against all of this? Why is she like this?

She nods again and finds herself chugging half of her beer.

The food is good. It’s so good. Her sandwich is stellar, from the sauce to the pork to the pickles that rest on top. And those miscellaneous sides? Dear God, the coleslaw. The cornbread is so fluffy, so moist that it feels like she’s biting into a cloud made of corn and sweetness. “Holy shit,” Clark blurts out after her fifth bite.

Lexa looks to be in a similar state of ecstasy over her chicken and baked beans. “Mhm,” she moans through a full mouth.

A beer each and too much barbecue later, they are lazily watching the kids on the dance floor.

“That was amazing,” Clarke says.

“I’d say a solid second place for best barbecue I’ve ever had,” Lexa replies. 

“Then you’d better take me to this place in Kansas City some day,” Clarke says without thinking. Stupid brain, stupid truths. She wants to cover her mouth, to stuff enough wet naps in it that it will never say anything so dumb again. This is temporary, her mind scolds her. There is no future here. You will take this goddess to Annapolis and you will go about your life. You will fix your mistakes. You will focus on that, not on her.

But it’s hard. It’s so damn hard. 

Lexa finishes her second beer. Clarke chugs the rest of hers to catch up, but finds that her hand is being held, pulled even, before she can set the glass down. Lexa is tugging her to the dance floor.

“Dance with me,” Lexa commands.

Clarke wants to blame everything for why she follows. It’s the heat. It’s the beer. It’s the stomach full of amazing barbecue. If she were cool, sober, and hungry, she would not do this. No, that Clarke would have the sense to stop this, to say it is too much. But this Clarke…

This Clarke is dancing. This Clarke has found a pair of green eyes to focus on. This Clarke is watching full lips mouth lyrics she doesn’t know. This Clarke is enchanted. 

Time seems to slow down. They blend, moving first into the small crowd of dancers, and then into each other. Clarke can’t blame of the beers or the barbecue then. It’s all Lexa. It’s this stranger that seems to have a gravitational pull on her. They orbit closer and closer, like dying stars spiraling into one another. They are drawn, that is certain. Whether or not that draw is destructive remains to be seen. They could merge together and form a beautiful new star or a disastrous supernova. 

But Clarke has stopped caring about that. Lexa’s hands find her hips. They guide them into synchronized swaying. 

Clarke can’t remember the last time she went dancing. Not with Finn, never with Finn. He thought dancing and clubs were stupid, a waste of time and money. She went a few times with Octavia, maybe, close to graduation. Yes, that was it. The last time she danced, they were blowing off steam before finals. They got signature cocktails in glowing glasses and laughed together. Octavia had danced with her, not this close, because they were friends, of course. She had whispered between songs that Lincoln asked her to marry him and she had said yes. Clarke bought her another glowing drink after that to celebrate and hugged the shit out of her.

But she had forgotten. That was three years ago. She had forgotten how good it felt to just sway, to just be, to watch someone inches away from her do the same as they watched her.

And Lexa’s breath is hot on her shoulder--on her neck and cheeks. It’s stupid to deny that she likes it there. It’s the stupidest thing in the world.

“I love this song,” Lexa husks as the music changes.

Clarke doesn’t know the song. Honestly, she can barely hear it. She feels the bass rumble up through her from the dance floor. She feels Lexa’s gentle hands guide her through it. That’s all she needs to know that it’s good. She gives in to gravity. She lets herself be pulled into this black hole that is this beautiful stranger, this goddess. She had asked Clarke to dance with her, not to give herself to her, but that’s what Clarke does. She becomes liquid in those elegant hands, becomes clay that can be shaped and molded into whatever Lexa wants her to be.

And then that hot breath is closer than ever. Lexa’s lips are inches from hers, hovering. Those green eyes, pupils blown and shiny black, reflecting the spirals of lights wrapped around the trees, are looking only at her. Clarke is beyond thought, living only in feeling.

But Lexa is torn away. 

A man is pushing her. She is yelling at him. Her face becomes stone again as she pushes back. 

Their stars go supernova. The world around them explodes back into light.

“These kids don’t need to see that!” the man is shouting at her as the lunges again.

Lexa dodges him, light and strong. Her arm wraps around Clarke’s shoulders. “Then they don’t need to watch,” she growls protectively.

“You’re sick,” the man accuses, words slurring enough to let them know he’s drunk. “It’s wrong.”

“You’re the one that’s wrong. I should--”

He cuts Lexa off when he charges at her again.

Clarke can only watch mutely. Lexa lets go of her and moves to push the man aside. She shoves him just enough that he trips off of the dance floor and into the sandy soil that surrounds it. A few of the kids that have stopped dancing to stare of them are laughing at him now, but most are staring in awe. 

Lexa’s hands are on her shoulders again, this time shaking her a little to bring her back into the present. “Clarke, we have to go.”

Clarke nods.

Lexa is leading her by the hand, into the dark, into the fog of the southern summer night. This Lexa is different. Her grip is strong, but it doesn’t hurt. They are walking, but almost running. They are marching. Whether it is to or from battle, Clarke is not sure. The hazy glow of the motel is coming into view. 

“It’s okay. You’re safe.” Lexa’s strong voice vibrates to her through their linked arms.

Clarke tries to hum some acknowledgement. 

“Sorry about that. I forgot where we were for a minute,” Lexa apologizes, her eyes still dead ahead and set on the motel a few hundred yards down the road.

Clarke can’t really think. Where we were? Who we are? What we are? What does it matter? She is safe. She does feel safe. This hand in hers, long and elegant, but soft. It would do anything for her. She knows that now. “It’s okay,” Clarke finally says. “We’re okay.”

“Yeah. We’re okay,” Lexa replies.

“Who are you right now even?” Clarke asks as Lexa guides her to the safety of the parking lot and its bright lights.

The stone mask of Lexa’s face breaks. It cracks, little by little, revealing a reverent smile. “My friends used to call this version of me ‘The Commander’. Sorry if I scared you.”

“No,” Clarke replies frantically. “No you didn’t scare me. I think we needed her, the Commander that is…”

And Clarke needs to talk about anything that isn’t how right Lexa’s hands felt on her hips. Or how she feels more alive right now than she has since she first came to this swampy hell hole of a state. Her nerves are on fire. Everything is Lexa. Everything is the hand that still holds hers tightly even though the door to their room is only a few steps away. Everything is the smell of sweat mixed with pine tree hotel soap and citrus hotel shampoo. Everything is fire in her skin and the way that the low lights bounce off of brunette curls and waves. Everything is the way that tattoo dances across Lexa’s tan skin, rippling across muscles that were just minutes ago defending her.

She’s never had this. She’s had great friends, sure. She’s had her loves. Finn was sweet to her when they were young, bringing her flowers and twirling her blonde hair between his fingers as they lay in his dorm room bed together. That had stopped years ago though. The most contact she got from him anymore was a sweaty tumble in their sheets, immediately followed by him snoring next to her, curling up away from her.

But Lexa squeezes her fingers as she fishes through the pockets of her board shorts with her free hand to get the key to their room. Lexa keeps her safe. Lexa puts Clarke in front of her as she unlocks the door and makes sure she goes in first. Lexa closes the door behind them and sinks a little against it, finally letting go of Clarke’s hand.

“You’re safe,” Lexa repeats.

Oh Lexa, Clarke is not safe with you. She is not capable of thinking straight while she watches a single bead of sweat trickle down your neck. She is not safe because you are amazing. She is not safe because you are everything she needs, even if it might not necessarily be healthy right now. 

And now it’s Clarke’s hands that are on her hips, pressing her against that door. Clarke’s breath is the one that is hot against Lexa’s skin now. Nevermind that her breath smells a bit like cornbread and cheap beer and a memory full of firing nerves. 

Clarke licks her lips. “Where were we?” she asks.

Lexa is grinning again. Not the Commander. Lexa--soft and smiling Lexa. “Who are you now?” she dares to ask.

Clarke answers, “I think I fell from the stars.”

Then their lips are crashing together. It’s amazing and it’s stupid. It is the worst idea they’ve ever had and the best feeling that either has felt in a long time. It’s hard and soft at the same time. It’s everything they need and everything they don’t. This was supposed to be simple. Fifteen hours in a car together. A good deed. A cathartic journey home. Now it’s complicated. They just made it complicated.

But they keep kissing. Their lips keep parting and then meeting again. The room is on fire. It could literally be on fire around them and they would hardly notice. 

A tongue ghosts over a bottom lip. Their kisses deepen. Now Lexa’s hands are pushing hers up, requesting access to Clarke’s own hips. They are guiding her into another dance. They sway her, dancing her back to the tousled sheets of the closest bed.


	5. Be with me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is why the fic has an M rating. Skip if that isn’t something you are comfortable with!
> 
> Sorry this one took so long. I am terrible at writing smut and was painting my house all week.

They speak in a language of sighs and silences. Their poetry consists of shudders and gasps. Their songs are written in the scrape of nails and teeth. In-between moments of heat and ecstasy, Clarke’s mind shouts that this is a terrible idea, that she should not be doing this. She ignores it, of course. What else can she do?

Lexa is a force. Not that she’s forceful. Not by any means. Most of her kisses are feather-light, whispering against Clarke’s neck and jawline now. Even the pressure of her weight above Clarke is somehow gentle, like a warm blanket in winter, almost. 

Maybe that is it? Maybe that’s why she doesn’t listen to the distant corner of her mind that begs for sanity, begs her to end this. She’s cold. She’s lonely. She hasn’t been kissed like this in years. These cotton ball kisses, light as air itself, are reverent. To Lexa, she is the goddess. Right now, she is the one being worshipped. 

Clarke cannot remember ever being worshipped. She’s been romanced, sure. She’s been taken out to nice places, brought home to a bed surrounded by cheap candles and littered with wilted rose petals. It was nice, sure, but did it feel like this? No. Nothing has ever felt like this. Above her, Lexa is thrumming with heat and energy she’s never known the likes of. No one has felt that way when they straddled her hips. Lexa is shaking, but she keeps kissing her way down Clarke’s neck. 

Clarke has never made anyone shake before by just laying underneath them.

“Is this okay?” 

The question is whispered where her neck meets her shoulder. Clarke can’t help but squirm. Her hips jut upwards of their own accord. “Yes,” she breathes. It almost feels like a violation of their newfound language without words.

Lexa’s hand slides under her shirt. “And this?”

The hand feels like a thousand pinpricks of perfect heat. “Yes,” is all she can offer in answer.

One finger hooks around the gap between the cups of her bra. A knuckle drives with purpose into her sternum. “And this?”

It’s all so crazy. This is not something Clarke Griffin does. This is not a situation she gets herself into. She’d had her wild nights. She’s woken up from blackout drunk in the backyard of a frat house and checked to make sure she still had her pants on. She’s made out with both a man and a woman she did not know one New Year--because they were next to her, because it was fun, and because that’s what you do on New Years. But Clarke Griffin, well, she has standards. Standards are supposed to make you a better person. They are supposed to allow you to rise above the rabble.

“What’s your last name?” she pants, because Clarke Griffin has never slept with anyone whose last name she didn’t know.

“Woods,” Lexa answers.

“Gri--” Clarke tries to offer in return, but Lexa supplied her name, so she takes what she’s paid for. 

Lexa’s hand slides past the now oh so constricting metal of her underwire, finding its way to rolling hills of soft skin. Clarke is made breathless again. She suddenly finds that sharing her last name with Lexa is completely unimportant.

Lexa’s grin above her is ferocious. If she didn’t know better, Clarke might think she was underneath a big cat that was about to eat her. Her green eyes glow in the dark, or at least pick up the yellow light emanating from the parking lot outside that slips through the blinds. Somehow, the lights have been turned off. Clarke is not sure when that happened.

Lexa’s hand is gentle, slipping slowly against her skin, barely touching her at all. “I need to know you are okay with all of this, with everything,” Lexa purrs above her.

It’s a war in her mind that takes place in a moment. Clarke Griffin has standards. Clarke Griffin has never had sex on the first date. Is a road trip stop at a barbecue place where they get kicked out for dancing too close even a date? 

But Lexa begs to differ. Not with her mouth, not with her hand, but with her entire being. Something about her radiates this comfort to Clarke that she’s never had with anyone else that’s been so close her. Lexa, who smells like hotel soap and smoke and beer and herself. Lexa, who slept the last few nights on a picnic table before this. Lexa, who could be lying to her this entire time and could steal her kidneys after this, or do something else worthy of an urban legend. Lexa Woods, whose last name she just learned seconds ago. Lexa wants her, even if she hardly knows her. 

So what does it matter?

“I’m so okay with it,” Clarke breathes against Lexa’s neck. “I’m okay with all of it.”

Clarke lets go. She is not very good at letting go, but for Lexa, she can.

Her muscles become liquid. Her shorts are sliding down her legs, slowly now. She can feel the denim drag languidly over her skin. “But you,” she puffs out between shallow breaths.

“Let me worry about that,” Lexa whispers into her ear.

And Clarke’s shirt soon follows over her head. She feels like she’s drifting some place far away, some place dark and warm. She’s desperate for something to hold on to. She reaches out to the nearest thing. And it’s skin. Skin like silk made from fire. Lexa’s shirt is gone too, and God, she has abs. Nice fucking abs.

“You’re gonna kill me here,” Clarke blurts out as her hands roam further.

“Most people save that for after,” Lexa jokes as she reaches for the clasp of Clarke’s bra.

Clarke hisses as it comes undone. She opens her eyes. “And here I thought you were into the real freaky stuff.”

Lexa keeps grinning above her. “Wanna find out?”

She does. She so does. Not like, you know, actual freaky stuff, but a shine in Lexa’s smile tells her there’s nothing like that on the table. She doesn’t know why she trusts this woman above her. She doesn’t know why she’s so enchanted by her. Sure, she’s very pretty and so far as Clarke has found out on this night, very good with her hands. She’s known many pretty people. She’s known many pairs of skillful hands. She has never felt so drawn to any of them before.

She nods.

From there, it’s a whirlwind. Lexa’s thigh is between hers. Her lips are travelling down her neck, peppering it with slow, too soft kisses. Her fingers are roaming over the soft skin of her breasts. Clarke’s throat is going dry. Her lips are parting on their own accord, letting forth sounds she did not know herself capable of making.

She can’t think. In the few moments of clarity she gets, all she can think is that she deserves this. She is usually the one that takes care, that makes sure everyone else is getting what they need. She never gets what she needs. Except for tonight. Tonight, she needs Lexa.

Lexa’s fingers join the ebbing pressure of her thigh. They ghost right over where Clarke needs them, teasing only for a few seconds. Just enough to make her whine.

And time blurs again. But Clarke knows that her world goes fuzzy for only an embarrassingly short time before she’s falling apart in Lexa’s able hands.

“Fuck,” she breathes when she finds breath.

Lexa is grinning again, but she can’t see it. She can feel the quirk of the other woman’s lips against her shoulder, next to the now tender mark they’d sucked into her skin while she came down. “Someone needed that.”

Oh and she did. She so did. 

But before Clarke can find a witty retort in the toasted marshmallow hue of her afterglow-addled brain, Lexa is kissing her way down her stomach.

“But you,” she objects again.

“Later,” Lexa growls.

Next thing Clarke knows, her panties have found a new home on the floor of the motel room and Lexa has found a new home between her legs.

Oh. So this is happening.

“You don’t--” she tries to protest.

Lexa nips her thigh to interrupt her. “Did anyone ever tell you that you talk far too much Clarke? Just be here. Just be with me.”

She doesn’t object again, because Lexa’s tongue is every bit as amazing as the rest of her. Interrupting this would be a sin. This is art. This is expression at its finest level. Lexa takes care of her with a familiar dedication. She paints a beautiful landscape on Clarke. Clarke can see it in the lids of her tightly closed eyes, in the bite of her teeth against her lip. There are blues and greens, mingling together, swirling brightly. 

It’s the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen...or felt.

“Holy shit,” she sighs in reverence, then comes again.

Lexa takes her to a warm and dark place, where everything is safe and wonderful and nothing hurts. She pants freely on the hotel sheets, glistening in a sheen of sweat, but not caring. When her eyes crack open again, Lexa is smiling at her, head resting on her thigh.

“Has anyone ever told you that you are really good at that?” she asks.

Lexa chuckles, her laugh vibrating right into Clarke’s skin. “Maybe.”

But Clarke isn’t greedy. She appreciates being cared for like this. It was nice, but it’s time to return the favor. It helps that Lexa is gorgeous, even in the minimal light that drifts in from the cracks in the blinds. Clarke can’t even help but want her, so she beckons her back up. Lexa shimmies up the sheets to lay beside her.

They kiss again, slow and soft still. Clarke uses this distraction to allow her hands to roam Lexa’s taut frame. She pulls down her shorts and underwear all in one swoop, wasting no time.

“Clarke, you don’t have--”

Clarke kisses her again to stop her, then whispers against her lips, “Now you’re talking too much.”

Lexa is silenced easily. Clarke can tease too, and she does. First with one finger, then with two. Lexa is quiet, but not for long. Clarke coaxes whispered curses from her. Fucks and shits alike descend to moans. Then Lexa is the one falling apart--rigid and then limp in her arms. They tangle together into a pile of overheated satisfaction and sleep.

\---

She wakes up terrified. Some weight is laying heavy on her chest. She tries to remember if she was dreaming of drowning--if this weight might be a leftover of her subconscious. Then she opens her eyes.

This weight is brown curls. This weight is breathing softly against her still bare skin. This weight is Lexa, smiling sleeply up at her.

Oh no. This is complicated now. It’s so complicated.

“So, is this the part where you buy me waffles? If so, you’re a keeper,” Lexa tells her, voice still sandy from sleep and vibrating through her ribs.

Maybe it’s not complicated.

In spite of that moment’s terror before, Clarke smiles. “I feel like I should be making them for you. It’s the least I could do.”

Lexa hides her grin between Clarke’s side and the linens she has pulled up under her chin. “As amazing as that sounds, I don’t think this room comes equipped with a waffle iron.”

“Then I owe you.”

A pause extends itself a little too long. Lexa pulls the sheets up further. They cover her nose now. “Then I didn’t fuck this all up?”

Rational Clarke tells herself this is so fucked up. This is beyond fucked. This is not something a person does. But Rational Clarke is on vacation and needs to stop checking her emails from the beach. Impulsive Clarke is in charge now. Impulsive Clarke can’t help the pull of warmth that she feels in her belly, watching Lexa blush and hide against her side. It’s fucking adorable. She’s in trouble, but she doesn’t care at all. 

“No,” she says. “Not at all.”

They share a grin. Warmth spreads through Clarke’s chest like whiskey, rising up from her belly. Then her phone buzzes furiously on the nightstand. She groans.

“Yeah, it’s been doing that all morning,” Lexa informs her as she rolls herself out of the sheets a bit. “Should you check it?”

Clarke sighs. “Probably.”

Lexa spins herself out of the grasp of the sheets and reaches over to grab the phone for her. She hands it off wordlessly, without being asked.

Clarke feels like she might be able to marry this woman. “Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me unless it’s good news,” Lexa tells her.

There’s 57 texts from Finn now. It looks like he finally gave up last night, so he’s not the one blowing up her phone. It buzzes again. There’s now 11 texts from Octavia.

 **The Bestest Blake:** clarkles. unless u met an amazing plastic surgeon in florida that is not u. r u stalking randos on the beach now?

 **The Bestest Blake:** also that girl is hot as fuck

 **The Bestest Blake:** but seriously who is she?!

 **The Bestest Blake:** plz tell me you know her

 **The Bestest Blake:** plz tell me i heard wrong and u are cheating on finn with her instead of the other way around

 **The Bestest Blake:** also plz tell me she hasn’t murdered u in a gas station bathroom and used your entrails as party decorations

 **The Bestest Blake:** seriously tho, u haven’t responded in 4 hours

 **The Bestest Blake:** clarke

 **The Bestest Blake:** clarkles

 **The Bestest Blake:** CLORK!!!

 **The Bestest Blake:** COME IN CLARKE?!?!

“Fuck,” is all she can say as she scrolls up through the texts. In her haste to text Octavia last night, she had sent her the wrong picture. There, shining on her phone screen, is a tiny version of that amazing photo of Lexa she took on the secluded beach. 

And it’s complicated again.


End file.
